6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?

During the production of our opening sequence I learnt to use various different pieces of hardware equipment:

Canon HD Mini DV Camcorder

We used this camera for our pre-lim exercise but this time we experimented with the auto and manual focus, which was new for me.

Tripod

Most of the time we used the tripod to get smooth, steady shots but whilst improvising some shots we were able to be creative with the tripod:  e.g. putting it on the table to get a HA of Dawn (above).

I would advise anyone using a tripod to make sure all the legs are on the same level using the bubble on the side, as our camera was wonky at times so we often had to reshoot shots.

Paglights

Aside from making the shots well lit, we found that on our test shoot different shots were lit differently depending on the angle we were shooting from, so we used these lights and other lamps as well to keep continuity. 

The advantage of using artificial light is that you can create different effects easily, for our shot of the curtain however, we had to wait for the natural light outside to be bright enough.

Shotgun microphone
Our final shot is the only shot with dialogue, so we needed to remember to put the microphone on when shooting this shot.

I didnt expect the microphone to pick up even the smallest sounds as it is quite sensitive, so when shooting this shot we had to make sure there was no noise that could be picked up by it.

During post production I was able to develop knowledge and skills of the non linear editing software we used, 'Adobe Premier Pro':

I learnt how to alter the speed and duration of a shot. Like this wide master shot:

Incorporate a dissolve into 2 shot:

And how to add titles

I also learnt how to upload to Youtube!

Although our production process went smoothly and we didn't have any major issues, with hindsight I would have spent more time planning other possibilites for shots we could use as we had a lot of spare time on shoots which we used to improvise shots instead.